Baldwin Academy students got a chance to build their own SpaceX rockets, thanks to the Los Angeles aerospace company and the Union Pacific Foundation.

SpaceX recently won a $2.6 billion contract to build rockets to carry astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA.

But last week, the lucky fifth-graders got the chance to launch the SpaceX rockets they have been working on after school for the past five weeks. The athletic field became their makeshift launch pad in Hacienda La Puente Unified.

“SpaceX has been a major sponsor of the Youth Science Center,” agreed the center’s chairman Ron Chong. “They gave us 100 SpaceX rocket kits for our students to assemble. And they’re a $5,000 silver sponsor for our annual dinner on Nov. 14.”

Model Rocketry Instructor Lyle Majeska recommended the Valinda school. He lives just down the street from the school that his own son attended.

“I thought the students would learn a lot by building their own rockets,” Majeska explained. “The model rocket classes are very popular at the Youth Science Center in Hacienda Heights.”

During the afterschool class, the fifth-graders learned about aerodynamics and thrust to build missiles that will actually fly. They even added parachutes to the little capsules.

“The students were selected based on their teachers’ recommendations,” said Principal Lila Picado. “We wanted self-starters, who could work independently on the rockets.”

The Youth Science Center has pulled up stakes and moved down the road to Bixby Elementary in Hacienda Heights this summer. But the science circus is still offering three rings of fun.

The summer session began June 9, with weekly courses spread over the next five weeks. Many of the classes were already full of inquisitive kids.

“It took a couple days to move all our equipment from Wedgeworth Elementary, but we’re up and running,” said Ron Chong, chairman of the board of directors.

Chong and his wife, Judy, were busy shuttling students to their new classes. Many kids return every year to study new subjects.

This year, the science center is teaching 3D printing with its new digital printer. The cool machine builds three-dimensional objects by building up layers of plastic.

“The 3D printers used to cost thousands of dollars, but now you can buy them for $600,” explained teacher Kim Bach.

Her 25 students were using a computer assisted design program to construct their own brightly-colored name tags. Bach’s son, Steven, had just finished building a tiny little billiards table that uses BBs as billiard balls.

The Bachs say 3D printers are the wave of the future in manufacturing. “They’ll probably land up in everyone’s home so they can make their own products,” the science teacher predicted.

Next door, young sleuths were investigating chromatography in their makeshift crime lab. They were learning how to discover whodunnit before their crime scene final on Friday.